HCal wrote: ↑January 30th, 2024, 11:55 am
I meant the plain "Simple Truth" label, although many of those items (particularly meat and eggs) have "Natural" prominently stated on the label, such as
https://www.kroger.com/product/images/l ... 1111087023
If I were Kroger, I would keep "O Organics" as the USDA-certified organic label, and use "Simple Truth" for stuff that is "natural", "free from" or whatever other meaningless buzzwords they are throwing around.
I wonder how they get to describing those eggs (which cost 3.49 in Reno) as "natural." Like, aren't all eggs "natural?" I think they should clean up that sort of thing from the labeling. The identical SKU in Open Nature at Safeway (which cost 5.99 in Reno) does not say "natural" anywhere.
There also is some "Simple Truth Organic Seltzer Water." Again how do you do that? When it first came out it was Product of Canada, I think it is a different source now. They have some good flavors, but I don't know how you get "Organic" Seltzer Water. I bought for the flavors, not for the "Organic."
What is strange also is when Albertsons announced the O Organics redesign, they claimed the line had 1,500 SKUs. Yet when I search for "O Organics" and put the store location to the unit in Reno on Steamboat which is a new store that opened during COVID and is heavily merchandised (way better selection than the other local Safeways is my perception- maybe that is not reality) it only shows about 700 O Organics items available. The other two locations have the same number of available SKUs. Some smaller locations in NorCal have ~650 O Organics SKUs but most have more than that, and none have more than about 700. So the SKU range is pretty consistent regardless of store size/rural vs. not rural setting. Safeway still doesn't get it. Also of those SKUs I notice around 125 of them are "fruits and vegetables" SKUs. This brings some stores down to not much over 500 items in meat/baby/dairy/center store as O Organics. This is why the brand seems barely visible as you shop the store. I have seen numerous items discontinued in O Organics over the years. Bottled Tea, bagged snacks, some dairy items... and I don't see many (any) new items being added.
Now when I go to Smiths and search for Simple Truth Organic (not just plain Simple Truth) at the various local stores the results vary but even the lowest SKU unit has better SKU count than Safeway. Also in their case at each store around 100 "fruit and vegetable" SKUs are Simple Truth Organic. So there are still close to 1,000 Simple Truth Organic items in meat/baby/dairy/center store Simple Truth Organic.
Reno South Meadows: 1,068 results - this has a Sprouts across the street
Sparks: 1,107 results - this is a larger/busy busy busy store
Reno Lemmon: 1,069 results - high traffic store, middle to lower middle class area; competition is Wal Mart, a very sad Raleys that hasn't been remodeled in over 20 years and doesn't even have self checkout, and Grocery Outlet
Carson City: 986 results - this is a really downscale operation but a large store
Gardnerville: 881 results - this is only about a 50k square foot store so fewer items make sense.
Dayton: 1,104 results - this is a rural store so it is interesting to me it has so many SKUs.
Elko: 1,041 results - this store physically is identical to Gardnerville, but seems to have more Simple Truth Organic for some reason.
Pahrump: 1,033 results - this store physically is also identical to Gardnerville and Elko -
NOW what is also interesting to point out about the Carson City and Gardnerville Smiths is these two stores still have a Nutrition department/aisle (segregated from the rest of the store). It would appear that may really be hurting sales on Simple Truth Organic items since some are on that aisle and some are integrated into the sets throughout the rest of the store so it may be confusing people who want this line. I really liked the old segregated Nutrition departments but the sales results show (this also happened with Raleys) integrating the stuff throughout the store significantly helps sales and builds awareness of the items with customers who otherwise would ignore it (by not going down that Nutrition aisle at all).
Safeway was doing a redesign on O Organics; they announced it in early 2023. So far I do not see many redesigned products (I see a few). I am guessing movement on this stuff is so slow, they have a lot of old format packages to go through. They also claimed that O Organics is a "billion dollar brand" for them back in 2018. I wonder what percentage of that sales came from gallons of O Organics Milk. That still isn't much to brag about because it is like not even $10k per week average sales per store on O Organics.
So I still don't follow them rolling out O Organics across the merged entity and discontinuing Simple Truth Organic. I think if O Organics had more SKUs, there would be a stronger argument to do it. O Organics is just weak. The brand has been mismanaged. I suppose they could try a co-brand, like O Organics by Simple Truth or something, but why bother? That just clutters things up.
Brand awareness I also keep coming back to. You have these various territories where Simple Truth Organic is sold (OH, KY, MI, TN, NC, SC, GA, WI, KS, MO, etc.) where this Simple Truth Organic is a known brand to Kroger/Harris Teeter/Pick N Save customers. They have never heard of O Organics before.
Meanwhile with O Organics the brand is sold in some places where SImple Truth isn't sold or isn't well known, like NorCal, Acme, Shaws, and Jewel, but the brand only has a long history in NorCal (and obviously not a great one since they are down to only 700 SKUs in the NorCal Stores and 125 of those are produce SKUs). Shaws developed the Wild Harvest brand and until about 2017 or so that was the brand carried in Acme, Shaws, and Jewel (they kept that brand and the Supervalu brands longer than the divisions out west did) for this category. So in those markets there is little history and likely little to no customer connection with O Organics. Further in the other markets where customers are exposed to O Organics, like say OR/WA/AZ/CO/SoCal, since Kroger is present in those markets, the customers in those markets are already familiar with Simple Truth Organic anyway.
So by taking this inferior/smaller/more expensive O Organics line and replacing it with Simple Truth Organic, in, say, NorCal, they bring things to the table for the customer. They add more SKUs, they will cut prices, the product line will be more visible throughout the store due to more SKUs/more categories. Customers who perceived O Organics as "too expensive" or something will give this new Simple Truth Organic line a second look. I do not think an "expanded new lower priced" O Organics makes sense either. Many customers have already made up their mind about O Organics and aren't buying the line. It is time for a fresh start, new items, new pricing, and to get it right. That is where Simple Truth Organic immediately rolled out to all Safeway/Albertsons units makes sense and will immediately give them positive results/increase customer engagement.
But if they went the opposite route in, say, OH, and replacing the strong Simple Truth Organic line with this unknown O Organics line, even if they added all the STO SKUs to OO, what good does it do for the customer? How does it help the customer? It doesn't. It just confuses the customer, and for no reason. It was already an uphill climb to get customers in those markets to buy ST/STO, it took a lot of effort and marketing to build up the brand in those markets. That is not worth screwing up, just to say you "kept one of Safeway's brands."
Making bad decisions on branding is similar to the whole Albertsons/Lucky mess. Albertsons was weak in CA, had fewer stores. Didn't matter. Arrogance overrode logic. Albertsons was inferior in performance to Lucky but it didn't matter. Had everything in CA gone to the Lucky name/format pretty much everyone would have been happy and the store would have retained a lot of customers. Lucky had the superior brand/program, and more stores. I'd have abandoned the Albertsons format all over the Southwest and rebranded it to Lucky across NV, AZ, CA for sure. I see a similar thing here with O Organics. Weak brand, wrong brand for merged entity.